


Multiple Choice

by Glisseo



Series: Further Education [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Gen, Professor Potter, Teacher Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 05:52:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18685435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glisseo/pseuds/Glisseo
Summary: Harry didn’t attend the remembrance service. He had at first, had cut the ribbon unveiling the phoenix statue in the atrium, but the papers had run pieces slating him for not looking sad enough, for his fame detracting attention from those who had died, and Ginny had pointed out that those they’d known (Fred would have had a field day with those articles of course) would probably have been happy for them to spend the day with their children, remembering, but living as they couldn’t.Do not pity the dead, Harry.





	Multiple Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing, because I try to post stuff on 'Potter' days if I can.

“Hi … can I talk to you?”   
  
Harry looked up from his marking. One of his first years was hovering in the doorway of his study, fiddling with the sleeve of his robes. They were a bit too long for him; he stumbled over the hem as Harry waved him in.    
  
“What’s up?” said Harry, setting down his quill. “Everything all right?”   
  
He subtly scrutinised the boy that dropped into the chair in front of his desk, scanning him for signs of something amiss with a practiced eye. Shoulders slightly hunched beneath the too-large uniform, he noted. Fidgeting in his seat. Not what he was used to from the usually happy-go-lucky twelve year old.    
  
“I didn’t know.”   
  
His voice was small and tight. Upset, Harry realised. His stomach jolted. “Didn’t know what?”   
  
“That it was  _ here." _   
  
The calendar on Harry’s desk suddenly seemed to come into focus, flipped to Friday, 30th April, and he knew what he was being asked.    
  
“Teddy,” he said, his tone imploring.    
  
“They died here,” Teddy told him, and like his robes, the words seemed too big for him, too grown-up, too weighty. “At Hogwarts!”   
  
Harry didn’t attempt to deny it. He hesitated, then asked, “How did you find out?”   
  
“People in the common room,” said Teddy dismissively. “One of the seventh years has got special permission to go to the remembrance service because her aunt died, and someone said why wasn’t it at Hogwarts, instead of the Ministry, since that was where …”   
  
It wasn’t the time, but Harry couldn’t help noticing how Teddy resembled his father in his agitation. It wasn’t an expression he’d often seen on his godson, but the furrow between his eyebrows and downward turn of his mouth was distinctly familiar.    
  
“It’s held at the Ministry because this is a school,” he said. “And the people who died wouldn’t have wanted it turned into a … memorial battle site, or anything like that. It would disrupt the school, and -”   
  
“I don’t need to know that!” Teddy butted in angrily. “I want to know why you didn’t  _ tell me!" _   
  
That in itself was fairly easy to answer. They - he and Andromeda - hadn’t deliberately elected not to tell Teddy, not at first. But by the time he was old enough to understand why his parents weren’t around, they were both aware that he would be going off to Hogwarts all too soon, and suddenly adding in that detail seemed more cruel than anything else. How could he sit in the Great Hall for all his meals, knowing that his mother and father’s bodies had lain there? Picturing it?    
  
And yet there was some morbid curiosity, as Harry knew all too well, in learning those details. There was a part of you, as an orphan, that wanted to know it all, because those facts were still facts about his parents, facts about - in an ironic sort of way - their life.    
  
So instead of defending himself, he just said, “I’m sorry.”   
  
Teddy looked thrown, and a little deflated, like he’d been gearing up for a row. That wasn’t like him either, but then again, Harry reminded himself, Teddy was twelve now, nearly a teenager; he was changing, and Merlin, if he didn’t know how it felt to have that sense of burning injustice swelling inside you, a great bubble that threatened to burst. Because a lot of the time, it was fine. Harry had never known what it was like to have parents, so he had never missed it. Teddy had come off better than him, with his loving grandmother, godfather and the Weasleys to dote on him, and for most of his life he would not think about the fact that his parents had been taken away from him when he was less than a month old.    
  
But sometimes he would, and it wouldn’t feel fine at all.    
  
So when he set his jaw - that was something he’d picked up from Ginny, Harry registered absently - and said what he said next, Harry didn’t even think about arguing.    
  
“I want to go to the service on Sunday.”   
  
Harry didn’t attend the remembrance service. He had at first, had cut the ribbon unveiling the phoenix statue in the atrium, but the papers had run pieces slating him for not looking sad enough, for his fame detracting attention from those who had died, and Ginny had pointed out that those they’d known (Fred would have had a field day with those articles of course) would probably have been happy for them to spend the day with their children, remembering, but living as they couldn’t.  _ Do not pity the dead, Harry. _   
  
The 2nd of May wasn’t a national holiday, because there were some - like George, like Andromeda - who didn’t need a day to remember, and because it was also a celebration of victory, and it was Victoire Weasley’s birthday, and her family didn’t want her feeling guilty for being born on a day when people had died. It meant different things to different people. And this year, Teddy needed it to mean that he was old enough to choose to mourn.    
  
“OK,” said Harry. “I’ll speak to Professor McGonagall, but she won’t have a problem with it.”   
  
Teddy nodded mutely. There was a heavy silence before he spoke again, teeth worrying at his bottom lip.    
  
“I’m … what if I forget? Now I know that they died here … it’ll be really bad if I don’t think about it, if it’s just like before I knew, I -”   
  
_ Oh, Teddy, no.  _ Harry’s heart ached for him. “Ted, d’you remember the last Halloween before you came here?”   
  
“When James put that sheet with eye holes on Lily, and tried to make Al believe she was the ghost of a Muggle baby?” said Teddy, looking confused.    
  
“Yeah,” Harry said, smiling at the memory. “Well, my mum and dad died on Halloween, y’know. I didn’t find out until I was about your age. And yes, I think about it when that day comes around, but I don’t force myself to be miserable. That’s not what they’d want. And trust me when I tell you that your mum and dad wouldn’t want you to be anything but happy either.”   
  
“But I’m not happy that they’re dead!”   
  
“Of course you’re not!” said Harry. “But you can be sad that they’re not here, and still have a happy life - they’re not mutually exclusive, you know.” He levelled a serious look at his godson. “You should never, ever feel guilty for not thinking about it.”   
  
Teddy still looked pensive, although the crease in his forehead softened a bit.    
  
“I wish I didn’t know,” he admitted.    
  
“I know.”   
  
“Why is it so -  _ complicated?" _ __   
__   
“There’s no right way to lose someone,” Harry told him softly. “No one can tell you how to feel.”   
  
Teddy chewed his lip again, clearly thinking hard.    
  
“On Sunday,” said Harry. “After the service. Want to stay over at the house? We can make a den and have hot chocolate.”   
  
“Can we have the hot chocolate  __ in  the den?”   
  
“Do you even need to ask?”


End file.
